


Oh, Death

by nhixxie



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec Lightwood as Boy with Wide Open Third Eye, Also blasphemy??, And a gruesome murder, And somehow gift giving??, If you're high key christian or catholic, M/M, So please mind the archive warnings, Starring Magnus Bane as Death, There is an attempted rape with non-graphic descriptions, and you don't like the mucking around with it for artistic purposes this is not for you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 19:46:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21142202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nhixxie/pseuds/nhixxie
Summary: Alexander Lightwood has known even as a child that death comes for everyone. What he didn't expected is for it come to him every time it strikes its fancy.





	Oh, Death

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this was somewhat creepy for this spooky month of October. Please mind the ratings and warnings; there is mention of an attempted rape (non-graphic depictions) and some slight gore, so please take care of yourselves. Other than that enjoy the spooky! I'm at @nhixxie at twitter if you want to talk!

Alexander Lightwood has known even as a child that death comes for everyone.

It is during his grandfather’s funeral that he realizes this. Hundreds of people clad in back clothing, mourning over a man who during his living days has been vile, vengeful, and abusive. Cancer has ravaged the old man’s body, planting tumors into the tissue of his lungs until he was bereft of breath. Alexander and his sister, Isabelle, silently sit on their side of the pew. They don’t understand a lot being so young. They wonder though, if sickness excuses abhorrent behavior, as they watch the chapel fill with family and friends until it’s almost full to the brim. They absentmindedly listen to the hysterical, mourning cries of the people who hadn’t even visited their grandfather’s bedside when he was still of this earth. They’ve heard the stories. They’ve been to the old man’s towering mansion and seen the verdant grass of his expansive properties. Alec looks up to their father who clutches the mother he despises within the circle of his arms. 

This isn’t a funeral. It’s a lottery. 

Alec reaches in his pocket and takes out a piece of wrapped candy. He hands one to his sister, who takes it gratefully and pops it into her mouth.

He takes another one for himself, about to unwrap it, when he raises his eyes and sees a towering figure sauntering slowly down the walkway beside him. He presses his mouth close, reaches out, and grasps at the drape of black cloth within his reach. 

The figure stops, so distinctly, that it feels like time itself has stuttered into a pause. 

“Here.” Alec says, voice small, the offering settled in the little well of his palm.

Like fog crawling through dense forests, the figure slowly raises what Alec could presume is its hand, still covered by the black cloth that soon enough slithers back like malleable onyx. It exposes a spindly hand, grotesque swells of tissue where each bone meets, skin as black as obsidian. It takes the candy from Alec’s hand, and without words, continues its way to where his grandfather’s coffin stands.

Alec watches with interest in his eyes as the figure walks the steps up the altar. Its presence wilts the statues of saints and angels around him, their faces melting into sorrow as streaks of blood pour from the corners of their eyes in stigmatic tears. The man on the cross bleeds at his wounds, face contorting in disgust at the sight it, and Alec swears he feels the manic grin the figure gives in return.

It takes the same spindly hand, and in a motion stabs it into the body before him. The soul it tears from it shrieks in pain, howling into the dead air of the chapel now bereft of any grace, begging and pleading as it is easily dragged off the coffin and held high up in the air. Alec recognizes the sound, the face. Brandon Lightwood’s soul is as dark as he imagined it to be.

_Let me go you spawn of hell, I deserve to go to heaven! _

The figure laughs, the sound suddenly the only thing in the atmosphere. Alec looks around; everybody is going about their business, voices muted. Isabelle continues to munch on her candy beside him. 

**_What say you?_** The figure’s words come out as a growl, looking straight into the man on the crucifix, **_This bastard wants to go to heaven._**

The man looks down at Brandon Lightwood’s disgusting soul. _Make of him what you will._

Brandon Lightwood thrashes where he’s held, screaming and writhing as the figure manically laughs at him. He tips his hood back with one sweep, mouth opening unbearably wide, and rips into the soul with a feral gnash of impossibly sharp teeth. 

Alexander Lightwood watches, ears ringing with the shrieks of the grandfather he doesn’t love but has had in his life from as far as he can remember it. The hand that threateningly gripped his wrist tightly a year ago is falls limp, fightless. When the creature finishes what he has come for, it saunters down the steps of the altar, flowers wilting into ash black. It stills for a moment, as if pondering, and Alec swears it raises its blood red eyes at him, finding him in the crowd. As fast as it happens, everything disappears—the screams in his ears, the blood on the statues, and the muteness that blankets the grieving family around him. More so, the figure disappears. 

So, nothing excuses abhorrent behavior, Alec realizes. 

He sits on his side of the pew, keeping the flash of a human face he sees behind a dark hood deep in his mind. 

(Alec swears to god he sees the manifestations of the figure in odd corners of different places—flashes of obsidian fabric, streaks of blood on statues, until he fully gives the things his full attention and it disappears without a trace. Sometimes he hears the wrinkling of a candy in its wrapper being played around in someone’s hand.

It makes him remember: nothing excuses abhorrent behavior.)

Alexander Lightwood knows he is different from as early as he can remember. He intrinsically knows this ever since the sight he witnessed as a child during his grandfather’s funeral, that maybe his third eye is somewhat open, but the verification of it all comes when he finds himself in a crowd of people his age, unable to feel anything. 

He watches as the teenagers around him immerse themselves in the triviality of school, sports, friendships, sex. There’s no problem from the outside looking in; he excels in school with minimal effort, has maybe one or two people he considers close friends which is nothing peculiar. The only rumours flitting about is the fact that beautiful Alec Lightwood has no interest in having a relationship, romantic or sexual. If anything, it props him up onto a pedestal—the unattainably gorgeous and smart Lightwood boy that is too good for anyone out there. But in truth, what Alec feels is unbearable disinterest. It continues onto university, into his mid-twenties and all he feels is the absence of everything. There is nothing out there able to make his heart beat in his chest, or make his pulse pick up in excitement. He is inexplicably, unbearably _bored._

“Alec, just come. Please.” Isabelle says, hands pressed together and touching her chin, “You never let yourself have fun.”

“I don’t have to.” Alec shrugs, leaning back on his chair, “I’m fine.”

Izzy’s eyes grow wide, lips puckered into a pout. “Please? Please, big brother?”

Alec rolls his eyes, a small smile playing at his lips at the obvious act. “For how long?”

“Even just a bit.”

He shakes his head, as if in disbelief of his answer, “Fine. Just for a bit.”

He watches in amusement as his sister rejoices where she stands. She rushes out of his room and into hers, already flipping her closet inside out for something to wear. Alec smiles to himself as he gets onto his feet, saunters into his bathroom, shucks his clothes off his body, and steps into the warm shower that sprays against the tile. 

When they finally step into the sorority party Isabelle wants to go to, Alec knows right away it isn’t for him. The place is filled with men who think they’re the absolute shit, red cups filled with alcohol that is too strong for their blood streams to handle. Giggling girls stand in tightly knit circles, lips glistening under the strobe of lights Alpha Theta Nu rented specifically for this occasion. There’s no peaceful place to stand at or sit on. Bodies are constantly touching each other, and Alec feels like paving a way with his arms and bolting for the door as fast as he can.

“Alec,” Isabelle says pointedly like she already knows what he plans to do, “We’ve been here for fifteen minutes.”

Alec rolls his eyes. “Fifteen minutes too long.”

“Come on, brother, get something to drink.” Izzy says encouragingly, “Take a walk outside or something! If you need me, I’ll be with the girls, okay?”

Alec sighs, nodding. “Fine. Have fun. Text me when you’re ready to go.”

He pads towards the cooler sitting by the kitchen island and flips it open, grabbing a can of beer and popping it open with a loud hiss. He tips the golden liquid into his lips, letting the piney taste swish over his taste buds before gulping it down. He lingers for a bit, letting a bit of a buzz embrace his mind, talks to some girls and guys who makes their presence known to him. He is in the middle of a languid chat with a girl from his class when he tips the rest of his drink into his mouth.

“I’m gonna take a walk.” Alec says, and before the girl could slyly offer her company, he adds, “Alone.”

She raises both brows in the understanding that nothing is to be of fruition here, so she gives the counter a quick tap, flashes him a smile, and makes her way towards the living room. Alec feels the small sigh of relief flutter out of his lips as he does. He walks towards the door that leads to the house’s large backyard, one that extends into an expanse of towering pines. He draws closer to the small forest of trees, relishing the breeze that sifts through the foliage, blinking away the slight bleariness the alcohol deposits in his brain. 

Alec hears a scream.

It reverberates from deep into the trees, a female voice, and it makes Alec’s feet move on its own accord, breaking into a speedy run as he swerves past bushes and jutted rocks. He sees the figure of a woman from a different class hysterically making her way towards his direction, hair disheveled, hands clutching at her blouse, and it makes Alec’s stomach coil in disgust at the realization. He catches her in his arms— Amanda is her name, he remembers—and tries to soothe her.

“Hey, hey, calm down,” Alec says, voice as soft as he can manage, “I’m going to help you, okay? What happened to you?”

“He tried to—he tried to put hands on me,” The woman stutters, pupils blown, eyes wide, “He tried—”

Alec grasps her arms firmly, catching her attention. “Was he able to do anything to you?”

“No,” The girl says, and fear fills her eyes, “No, something grabbed him by the neck, and—and it dragged him away—” 

“What did it look like?” Alec asks, breath hitching in his throat. A familiar ache grips at his chest, as if a memory has crept from the floorboards of his mind and curled black tendrils around his heart. He feels he knows whatever this is, like a dream half-remembered.

“Black cloak, impossibly black, like there’s no light,” she stammers, “Thin hands, the thinnest I’ve ever seen—”

“Go, call a friend or a family member and get picked up.” Alec says under his breath, “Report this to the police. I’ll testify. But I need you to go.”

“Where are you going?” she asks, white-knuckled fists still grasping at her blouse, “There’s something out there.”

Alec smiles softly, and he doesn’t know why. “I know. Go, Amanda.”

She half-heartedly does what he tells her, making her way up to the clearing of the sorority house’s backyard, and the small looks she tosses his way makes him nod encouragingly back. When she finally disappears, Alec turns onto his feet, eyes grazing the darkness of what lays before him. Like someone making his way home, he begins to walk. 

His steps grow with increasing speed, dried leaves crunching against every thud it deposits onto the earth. Alec’s eyes adjust to the darkness draped around him, the outlines of trees and branches becoming more and more visible to him as he makes his way. The bright moon in the sky shines a helpful beam of light onto him, as if to mark his path.

It takes a while but he sees it. The dark, cloaked form that appears to him in both nightmares and dreams, in flashes of black along corners and streets, in the sound of a wrapper being crinkled between fingers. Grasped in his spindly hands is the neck of a man suspended in the air, his head lolling loosely like it’s been snapped at the vertebrae. He recognizes the face. Patrick Johnson, a member of the varsity football team.

The figure tosses its head back, like its finished off the last bits of Patrick Johnson’s soul, and under the brightness of the moon, something begins to shift. The drape of obsidian along its entirety begins to recede, impossibly smooth fabric slithering back and melting into golden skin. Spindly hands contracts into human-like palms and fingers; the hood covering his head twisting and shortening into spikes of jet-black hair. It drops the body it has broken onto the ground, and Alec couldn’t help but look at the odd angle Patrick Johnson’s head has bent. It turns onto its bare feet, naked under the lunar light, and finds Alec’s eyes from far away.

**_Alexander Lightwood._** A human voice to match a human body. **_We meet again._**

It—he, Alexander realizes as his eyes takes on more of the body before him—steps towards him, his feet gracefully moving in ways that only some kind of god could.

“What have you done to him?” Alec manages to ask, motioning towards the body on the earth, “And what did it do to you?”

**_It is the pleasure that comes with eating a young soul._** He smirks, body writhing in satiation as he rolls his head back with a satisfying crick. **_And I killed him. I don’t look kindly onto rapists._**

Alec lets the question he has been holding onto for most of his life tumble out of his lips. “What are you?”

** _I thought you would have known by now._ **

Alec presses his lips together. “Well I don’t.”

**_Death._** It says simply, a dark gleam in his black eyes. **_The one who cuts the strings of life as I see fit. The one who plants tumors into bodies and chokes hearts of its oxygen. The one who grips souls when it’s their time to reap them for my pleasure._**

“You’re some kind of god?” Alec asks, and Death laughs, a manic tinge threading into the sound.

_ ** Boy. I am older than god. ** _

“Then why do you keep showing yourself?” Alec asks, brow furrowed, “Someone like you who’s been alive for more than this entire universe—what do you want from me?”

Death draws closer, eyes bearing down onto Alec’s, gleaming in the dark. Blackened fingernails trace a line from the corner of his eyes down to the angle of his jaw, and the touch hovers over parted lips, relishing the warmth of the breaths escaping through them. His smirk deepens.

_ **Entertainment.** _

Alec’s pulse picks up, a steady beat clamoring against rib and sinew. 

_ **What say you of this boy?** _

Alec draws his gaze down onto the earth, meeting the lifeless eyes of a sinful person. He looks back up, his eyes drinking in the image of the moon spilling light over Death’s crown.

“Nothing excuses abhorrent behavior.” He says. 

Alexander watches as Death grins back at him, snapping his fingers as Patrick Johnson’s body is engulfed by fire of a funeral pyre. Whatever comes after blurs into a haze, and when he wakes up, he is underneath his comforter within his own room. Isabelle calls his name downstairs, announcing that they’re having pancakes for breakfast. When he goes to school, all traces of Patrick Johnson disappear. Nobody knows of the name, or the existence of such a man. Amanda Luxenburg is leading the debate team practice like nothing has happened.

He sits on his desk at his and Isabelle’s shared apartment, the yellow light of his lamp shining onto his assignment for tomorrow. He looks at the clock, notes the time, and decides to call it a night. He slips beneath his comforter, eyes bleary with sleep, and lets it pull him into a light slumber.

A crinkling sound echoes in his ear.

Alexander smiles.


End file.
